Gallantry with a red bicycle. Picture of my new bicycle, before I added the Go Sport saddle bags.
10/16/2011
Cafe de Flore, Paris
Gallantry with a red bicycle. Picture of my new bicycle, before I added the Go Sport saddle bags.
10/15/2011
McNamara Airport Coffee Shop, Detroit, Michigan
All discussion of the news shall be from McNamara Airport Ground Operations Break Room.
The Militant has a nice way of showing the importance of the long view of History to the young people at the "Occupy Wall Street protests." They quote:
"As long as workers' confidence and practice of solidarity continues to grow as a result of these struggles, we get stronger. 'Now and again the workers are victorious, but only for a time,' says the Communist Manifesto. 'The real fruit of their battles lies not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers.'"
ومن وقت إلى آخر ينتصر العمال انتصارهم هو الى حين. والنتيجة الحقة لنضالهم ليست في النجاح المباشر بل في إتحاد العمل المنعاظن باستمرار.
8/01/2011
Flore, Fishawi, Shati, McNamara ...Learning Shati Tea and Falafel Shop
Flore, Fishawi, Shati, McNamara
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of
Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from
McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.
Had an interesting conversation with an African American outside Dar Al-Ma'arif Bookstore in Cairo yesterday. Dr. Paul explained the significance of the metaphysics of Avicenna. Ibn Sina explains that the mind is both the individual mind (noos, in Greek) and the activator. Very interesting. Dr. Paul (Hardy) did his thesis on Avicenna at Oxford.
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of
Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from
McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.
Had an interesting conversation with an African American outside Dar Al-Ma'arif Bookstore in Cairo yesterday. Dr. Paul explained the significance of the metaphysics of Avicenna. Ibn Sina explains that the mind is both the individual mind (noos, in Greek) and the activator. Very interesting. Dr. Paul (Hardy) did his thesis on Avicenna at Oxford.
7/31/2011
Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza City, Gaza
...a democratic secular Palesine, with the Palestinians back on their land, will naturally be also be a refuge for Jews persecuted by Anti-semitism in the crisis-torn capitalist world (The Militant Aug. 8, 2011).
Just thinking of how the Universities no longer have "anthologies" of foreign literature the way they used to, and how the great classics in History of the 60's and 70's have been replaced by a hodg podge of personal reminiscences of interviewby reporters.
Just thinking of how the Universities no longer have "anthologies" of foreign literature the way they used to, and how the great classics in History of the 60's and 70's have been replaced by a hodg podge of personal reminiscences of interviewby reporters.
7/08/2011
café de Flore, Paris Maqamat Al-Hamadhaniمقامات الهمذاني
I just posted this cd I bought from the BNF Richlieu of the manuscript of Hamadhani's Maqamat, which were literary discussions--like the Tatler, but in 9th century Baghdad. They are stories, but also a form of literary criticism took place at these discussions. The early orientalists like de Sacy had access to 15th century manuscripts in the Bibliothèque royale and much was done: Below is a story of talking animals that is from Hamadani's Maqamat which is in de Sacy's Chrestomathie, "anthology." I have pasted in the "Dog"(le chien) story and the reference to the manuscript here. (When I went to Paris, the librarian in the Arabic section used the catalogue to find the manuscript number and then, with that info, I went to BNF Richlieu--right on my favorite bus route from Montmartre, the 75, I think, and ordered the CD. If you want to study the whole manuscript, you can wait for the pdf to download from my university of Michigan server. MSS arabe, BNF # 3923
Below is a copy and paste of story 113 in the Google Books Scan of this old Bibliography of Stories: BIBLIOGRAPHIE DES OUVRAGES ARABES OU RELATIFS AUX ARABES PUBLIES DANS l'Europe chrétienne de 1810 à 1885, Victor Chavin, Professeur a l'Universite de LIEGE
in Google books at Link
As you can see, you have to know a little bit about French, since the google scan doesn't OCR French very well. For Manuscrits, they have some gobledegook. My manuscript seems to have been read quite early, at least before 1885 already by these great old orientalists. In the footnotes after the story of the dog, my manuscript is listed as Paris, 639, n" 3923
Hamadani needs further study as an exeplary form of literary criticism, as my colleague at Jeddah Teachers college told me, thus enspiring me to go to the BNF Richleu and ordering it.
113. — Le chien.
8. — Behmauer, 113.— Gibb, 119.
Le saint BAyazîd est mordu par un chien malade qu'il avait recueilli et soigné.
Comme il se plaint, l'animal, à qui Dieu donne un instant la parole, lui dit
que « l'homme agit comme un homme et le chien comme un chien. »
Animaux qui parlent. Nombres, XXII et suiv. Winer, Bibl. Realwôr-
terbuch, 3® édit., 1, 184. — BiKhart, Hicrozoïcon, 1692, 1, 191-198.— Damîri,
1, 228 et 327. — IMâm, 125. — Defrémery, Batoutah, 4, 415 (Journ. asial.,
1843, 1, 216.).— Man. Paris, 346, n^ i93i> 16 et 626, n** 3668, 4.— Man.
Berlin, 20, 23.
113.* — DK SACY, Chre>tomathie arabe. 1H27, tome 3.
C'J Voir aussi :
— Ikockelmanii. 1, 03-^5; <^*dit. Aniclang, 93.
— (îrassc, Lchrbuch, 2, 1, 1, 460.
— H. Halla, 6^ 54. n*' liyoH.
Te Slane, Ibn Khall., 1, 1 12-114.
— D'Ucrlx^loi. y^'^-y/j.
"DoSacy, n" I2(/*', V; n" i?i*^, IIl-IV.
- !)(' Sacv, Hinjy. Miihaud. v" Hamadâni.
— Hainmer, Litcraturgcsch., 5, 994-99^.
— Scliniirrc*r m* donne pas l'édition de Scheid, dont il y a un exemplaire à
la HiMiothètuie de Strasbourg : -iÎAèNû-i*i^Vci ^•./c^.iU. ('onsessus Ilamada-
nensis vul^o dicti Ik*di alzamaan (^.^L« J^ *.5.^? ' *î cckI. Ms. bibliothcae Iratns
siii ejusdenKjue typis arabicis edidit Jaeobus Sclieidius. S. 1. n. d. In-4. 16.
(Catalogue de Strastxmrg, 27.)
("es! la maqame Ae Dhidr.
M\Ni'S(Kn>. (Manuscrits)
— Paris, 639, n" 3923.
— Herlin, 19, 529, n" 3535, 441, S4-8S (la neuvième maqânn- ) et 514. 5.
— Leide, 1, 309, noie et 334-335*
— Hibl. Lindes., 14-15.
— Hrockelmann, 1, ^,^.
- o8 —
Donne les maqâmt;s suivantes : 3, 7, S, 12, 15 et 20. (Texte. 7«S-g4 ;
traduction, 243-258; notes, 25<)-272; additions, 537; errata, 5t)«S.)(^)
('. R. Chêzy, J. des savants, 1829, 409-470.
Below is a copy and paste of story 113 in the Google Books Scan of this old Bibliography of Stories: BIBLIOGRAPHIE DES OUVRAGES ARABES OU RELATIFS AUX ARABES PUBLIES DANS l'Europe chrétienne de 1810 à 1885, Victor Chavin, Professeur a l'Universite de LIEGE
in Google books at Link
As you can see, you have to know a little bit about French, since the google scan doesn't OCR French very well. For Manuscrits, they have some gobledegook. My manuscript seems to have been read quite early, at least before 1885 already by these great old orientalists. In the footnotes after the story of the dog, my manuscript is listed as Paris, 639, n" 3923
Hamadani needs further study as an exeplary form of literary criticism, as my colleague at Jeddah Teachers college told me, thus enspiring me to go to the BNF Richleu and ordering it.
113. — Le chien.
8. — Behmauer, 113.— Gibb, 119.
Le saint BAyazîd est mordu par un chien malade qu'il avait recueilli et soigné.
Comme il se plaint, l'animal, à qui Dieu donne un instant la parole, lui dit
que « l'homme agit comme un homme et le chien comme un chien. »
Animaux qui parlent. Nombres, XXII et suiv. Winer, Bibl. Realwôr-
terbuch, 3® édit., 1, 184. — BiKhart, Hicrozoïcon, 1692, 1, 191-198.— Damîri,
1, 228 et 327. — IMâm, 125. — Defrémery, Batoutah, 4, 415 (Journ. asial.,
1843, 1, 216.).— Man. Paris, 346, n^ i93i> 16 et 626, n** 3668, 4.— Man.
Berlin, 20, 23.
113.* — DK SACY, Chre>tomathie arabe. 1H27, tome 3.
C'J Voir aussi :
— Ikockelmanii. 1, 03-^5; <^*dit. Aniclang, 93.
— (îrassc, Lchrbuch, 2, 1, 1, 460.
— H. Halla, 6^ 54. n*' liyoH.
Te Slane, Ibn Khall., 1, 1 12-114.
— D'Ucrlx^loi. y^'^-y/j.
"DoSacy, n" I2(/*', V; n" i?i*^, IIl-IV.
- !)(' Sacv, Hinjy. Miihaud. v" Hamadâni.
— Hainmer, Litcraturgcsch., 5, 994-99^.
— Scliniirrc*r m* donne pas l'édition de Scheid, dont il y a un exemplaire à
la HiMiothètuie de Strasbourg : -iÎAèNû-i*i^Vci ^•./c^.iU. ('onsessus Ilamada-
nensis vul^o dicti Ik*di alzamaan (^.^L« J^ *.5.^? ' *î cckI. Ms. bibliothcae Iratns
siii ejusdenKjue typis arabicis edidit Jaeobus Sclieidius. S. 1. n. d. In-4. 16.
(Catalogue de Strastxmrg, 27.)
("es! la maqame Ae Dhidr.
M\Ni'S(Kn>. (Manuscrits)
— Paris, 639, n" 3923.
— Herlin, 19, 529, n" 3535, 441, S4-8S (la neuvième maqânn- ) et 514. 5.
— Leide, 1, 309, noie et 334-335*
— Hibl. Lindes., 14-15.
— Hrockelmann, 1, ^,^.
- o8 —
Donne les maqâmt;s suivantes : 3, 7, S, 12, 15 et 20. (Texte. 7«S-g4 ;
traduction, 243-258; notes, 25<)-272; additions, 537; errata, 5t)«S.)(^)
('. R. Chêzy, J. des savants, 1829, 409-470.
7/07/2011
MacNamara Airport Terminal Ground Operations Coffee Machine, Detroit, Michigan ..Hama, Syria
People throughout Syria held night-time protests in solidarity with the people of Hama yesterday, July 6, since the Syrian army has dealt very severely with Hama after their July 1 demonstration of 1 and ½ million 150,000. Although the attack by the Syrian army cannot be condoned, it was rather hypocritical of the US Secretary of State, Clinton, to express concern, and continue to link these tactics of the Assad regime with something Syria had learned from Iran. She can get away with such hypocrisy since very little is known about how the US condoned and even fostered even worse repression in their support of the Shah against opposition to him throughout the many urban centers of Iran which were subject to hellicopter strafing and the infamous steel bed springs torture racks developed by the American Embassy for use of the dreaded SAVAK.
7/03/2011
Macnamara Airport Ground Ops Coffee Machine...the financial crisis and the consequent assault on workers and farmers
Je sais que l'homme ou la femme moyen me dira que j'ai une haine virulante envers les états unis, mais ce n'est pas contre l'Amérique, mais plutot contre la classe dirigeante et leur pragmatisme. Eux, ils n'ont pas besoin de gagner. Pour eux ce n'est que "exister" qu'ils faut faire. Pour nous autres, il faut arracher le pourvoir de leur mains. C'est la crise des banques impérialistes qui provoque la reaction brutale de Assad en Syrie, et des colonels de l'Egypte et de la Lybie. C'est le capitalisme -- ce système qui n'a qu'a détruire comme il peut pour survivre. C'est pour cela qu'il y a ces tueries en Syrie.
Il n'y a qu'une prise de pouvoir aux états unis par la classe ouvrière, prise de pouvoir par une direction révolutionnaire de masse qui n'hésitera pas à prendre le pourvoir des captialistes, qui pourra arreter ce systeme inexorable du capitalisme mondial, qui est l'imperialisme. Et pauvre moi, qui avait meme "un peu peur" quand mes étudiants sont allés "en masse" me dit-on, au doyen pour se plaindre du fait que je n'avais pas enseigné 002, avec les nouvelles bouquins, avant. Et voila que je parle des "masses" maintenant apres avoir récouperé un peu après la semestre scholaire, et avoir re-lu "Capitalism's Long Hot Winter Has Begun."pdf de 2004.
Il n'y a qu'une prise de pouvoir aux états unis par la classe ouvrière, prise de pouvoir par une direction révolutionnaire de masse qui n'hésitera pas à prendre le pourvoir des captialistes, qui pourra arreter ce systeme inexorable du capitalisme mondial, qui est l'imperialisme. Et pauvre moi, qui avait meme "un peu peur" quand mes étudiants sont allés "en masse" me dit-on, au doyen pour se plaindre du fait que je n'avais pas enseigné 002, avec les nouvelles bouquins, avant. Et voila que je parle des "masses" maintenant apres avoir récouperé un peu après la semestre scholaire, et avoir re-lu "Capitalism's Long Hot Winter Has Begun."pdf de 2004.
7/02/2011
from my appartment ...on Syria
Watched a BBC report by Sue Lloyd-Roberts on the big demonstrations in Syria. It gives an unusual glimpse to the west of what I see all the time on Al-Arabiyya. She shows how the activists get out the pictures.
Women are fleeing to Lebanon so as not to get raped by the regime's soldiers. And soldiers have to flee to Lebanon in order to avoid being killed for not enforcing orders to shoot. Friday of "Get out" jum'a al-rahal today some of the largest demonstrations ever.
Women are fleeing to Lebanon so as not to get raped by the regime's soldiers. And soldiers have to flee to Lebanon in order to avoid being killed for not enforcing orders to shoot. Friday of "Get out" jum'a al-rahal today some of the largest demonstrations ever.
6/26/2011
Café de Flore, Paris: La France toujours! et Vive Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Freidan, et Hoda Sha'rawi
Link to me thinking about a book I should write. This takes a little time to download. Lien à moi pensant à un livre que je devrais écrire. اتصال(ياخذ قليم من الوقت) وانا افكر عن كتاب ضروري ان اكتبه
With all the news about Syria, I forgot, but was reminded by my friend Cindy, about the importance of what women in Saudi Arabia do.
Avec toutes les nouvelles de Syrie, j'avais oublié, mais mon amie, Cindy, m'a fait souvenir de l'importance de ce que font les femmes en Arabie Saoudite.
مع كل الاخبار عن سوريا, نسيت, و لاكن صديقتي سندي ذكّرتني عن اهمية ما تفعلون النساء في العربية السعودية
Saudi women defy ban on driving cars
Cindy* wrote:
Dozens of Saudi women drove cars in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, and other Saudi cities June 17 to protest the ban on women driving.
It was the first major protest against the Saudi monarchy’s reactionary ban since November 1990, when 47 women drove 14 cars in a convoy on a Riyadh highway. That action came after U.S. women soldiers were stationed in Saudi Arabia prior to the start of the U.S. war against Iraq and freely drove military vehicles.
The 47 women were arrested, lost their passports for a year, and were fired from their jobs. A religious order prohibiting women from driving was handed down and quickly embraced by the Interior Ministry.
The ruling Saudi family, a close ally of Washington, has historically invoked Islamic law to justify tight restrictions on political space, not only for women but all working people in the kingdom.
Women are allowed to drive in some rural villages, where they have traditionally taken produce to market, hauled water, and transported people.
In addition to the prohibition on driving, Saudi women cannot vote. They require a male guardian’s permission to take a job or travel.
*July 4th issue of a US paper written in the interests of working people
With all the news about Syria, I forgot, but was reminded by my friend Cindy, about the importance of what women in Saudi Arabia do.
Avec toutes les nouvelles de Syrie, j'avais oublié, mais mon amie, Cindy, m'a fait souvenir de l'importance de ce que font les femmes en Arabie Saoudite.
مع كل الاخبار عن سوريا, نسيت, و لاكن صديقتي سندي ذكّرتني عن اهمية ما تفعلون النساء في العربية السعودية
Saudi women defy ban on driving cars
Cindy* wrote:
Dozens of Saudi women drove cars in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, and other Saudi cities June 17 to protest the ban on women driving.
It was the first major protest against the Saudi monarchy’s reactionary ban since November 1990, when 47 women drove 14 cars in a convoy on a Riyadh highway. That action came after U.S. women soldiers were stationed in Saudi Arabia prior to the start of the U.S. war against Iraq and freely drove military vehicles.
The 47 women were arrested, lost their passports for a year, and were fired from their jobs. A religious order prohibiting women from driving was handed down and quickly embraced by the Interior Ministry.
The ruling Saudi family, a close ally of Washington, has historically invoked Islamic law to justify tight restrictions on political space, not only for women but all working people in the kingdom.
Women are allowed to drive in some rural villages, where they have traditionally taken produce to market, hauled water, and transported people.
In addition to the prohibition on driving, Saudi women cannot vote. They require a male guardian’s permission to take a job or travel.
*July 4th issue of a US paper written in the interests of working people
6/24/2011
ٍمن شقتي From my appartment
Today's Friday protests in Syria are called : Legitimate Bereavement فقدان شرعية
McNamara Ground Ops Coffee Machine, Detroit...Al-Jazeera on Syria
دير الزور حلب حمص حماة درعاء دمشق
Deir Al-Zor, Halab(Aleppo), Homs, Hama', Der'aa, Dimashq(Damascus)
Hier soir il y avait des manifestations pour la chute du regime Syrian dans les villes. Les attaques de l'armée syrienne continue dans le nord d'Alep. 10,000 refugiées en Turaquie maintenant dans des camps cloisonnés.
Un lénine de la Syrie expliqurait l'importance de ces paysans du nord de Syrie qui font greve--le seul moyen qu'ils ont,--en quittant leurs récoltes. Des grèves des petits marchands commencent dans d'autres villes syriennes en meme temps.
Il y a pas mal de Kurds syriens dans ces pays au nord d'Alep. Le régime syrien attaque cette région pour jouer avec le stigma raciste contre les Kurds. Mais il ne réussi pas. Tous les syriens sont avec les Kurds. Il y a des manifestations a Qamishli, grand région kurde juste a coté de la Turquie.
écrit pendant le دوام ليمي "night shift" à l'aeroport de Detroit le 23 juin, 2011, correspond à 9h du matin Al-Jazeera, Qatar le 24 juin.
Deir Al-Zor, Halab(Aleppo), Homs, Hama', Der'aa, Dimashq(Damascus)
Hier soir il y avait des manifestations pour la chute du regime Syrian dans les villes. Les attaques de l'armée syrienne continue dans le nord d'Alep. 10,000 refugiées en Turaquie maintenant dans des camps cloisonnés.
Un lénine de la Syrie expliqurait l'importance de ces paysans du nord de Syrie qui font greve--le seul moyen qu'ils ont,--en quittant leurs récoltes. Des grèves des petits marchands commencent dans d'autres villes syriennes en meme temps.
Il y a pas mal de Kurds syriens dans ces pays au nord d'Alep. Le régime syrien attaque cette région pour jouer avec le stigma raciste contre les Kurds. Mais il ne réussi pas. Tous les syriens sont avec les Kurds. Il y a des manifestations a Qamishli, grand région kurde juste a coté de la Turquie.
écrit pendant le دوام ليمي "night shift" à l'aeroport de Detroit le 23 juin, 2011, correspond à 9h du matin Al-Jazeera, Qatar le 24 juin.
6/22/2011
Café de Flore, Paris and Abd Al-Halim Hafez's birthday
As we said before, all accounts of gallantry shall be from Café de Flore, Paris. What is nice about Google in Arabic is that yesterday, June 21, we were reminded that it was Egyptian male singer, Abd Al-Halim Hafez's birthday. No more gallant man than he, yesterday, on this singer-of-love-song's birthday, with the possible exception of Nelson Mandela, who received the elegant Michele Obama in his home town of Soweito yesterday,too. Gallant as he is, I'm sure Nelson Mandela(Freedom Now) won't bother Michele's pretty little head with a tribute to the role of the Cubans at the battle of Quito Canavale-to the role of Cuba in the ending of Apartheid. Michele Obama should read his speech, given in Cuba first thing after his release from prison in 1990 in Pathfinder Press' HOW FAR WE SLAVES HAVE COME. July26-1991-Cuba-and-Africa.mp3 is link to my reading of the speech, and a link to Mandela's speech at the UN, at about the same time, when the Apartheid Government was stalling on pushing De Klerk to step down and set up a democratic, non racial, South Africa. I heard Mandela speak in Tiger Stadium, in Detroit that year.
3011
3011
Macnamara Airport Ground Ops Coffee Machine...Syria
Last night students at Damascus University protested the regime: nothing about it on BBC this morning.
Some of the greats in English Literature at the University of Damascus; my father, Edward Said, and all the Syrians who came to help teach in Saudi Arabia. (above, is a picture of a café in Paris named after my daughter, who met my father in his retirement in East Lansing, Michigan.)
More about English Literature in the Middle East in future blog entries from the poetry café in Gaza, the tea-and-falafel-shop outside Shati' Beach Camp to which yesterday 36 US peace activists set sail to break the Israeli blocade.
6/19/2011
From my appartment, Joffrey's Coffee Shop, near Main Gate, KFUPM, Dhahran
All other news shall be from my appartment. This morning, I downloaded and installed Audacity and Lame encoder for making MP3's on my little ASUS Netbook. I am sitting here in the café, missing my students, who are finally free and on holiday. This little café, near Al-Nakhil (The Palm Tree) Restaurant, where I often have Biryani for lunch, is on the formerly deserted site where the father--(Tom Barger)--of my Shemlan colleague, Tim Barger, first discoverd oil in Saudi Arabia.
Shati' Tea-and-Falafel Shop, Gaza - On Learning..Philosophy of TechTalk*
*TechTalk, by Oxford University Press, is the series we use to teach Elementary and Pre Intermediate English to future Engineering students here at KFUPM.
According to Barthélémy, a professor at Lycée Henri IV, where Philippe Daumas* studied, we have to take the Encyclopedists of the Enlightemment, the age of "Les Lumieres" as an approach to a humanistic view of Machines and tools.(picture of Lycée Henri IV, above)
This is summarized in this nice translation of part 1 of Gilbert Simondon's 1958 Ecole Normale Supérieure - Sorbonne Thesis, L'individu et sa génèse physico-biologique, translated here, downloadable in pdf(copy here).
I'll have to put this kind of relation to Diderot's Encyclopedia with the Aleppo soap manufactures and "sina,a" of the Arabs.
Technical Mentality, translated by Arne De Boever, gives a nice summary of what Simondon meant by a culture of Technology(copy here). He has references to the potter making the pot; so this relates very closely to the trades of Syria. This unpublished text of Simondon, given to Jean-Hugues Barthélémy by his son was first published in Gilbert Simondon. Revue philosophique 3 (2006) Paris, P.U.F. 343-357
*Philippe Daumas, great supporter of the Palestinian Cause at University of Montpellier, where Taha Hussein studied, too.
6/18/2011
Café de Flore, Paris - Syrian government's gallantry?
Today, Saturday 18 June after the Friday mass demonstrations against the Regime of Bashar al-Assad, BBC TV showed film footage one of their reporters got by going, somehow into Syria and interviewing people in the fields, camped out to avoid the Syrian army going through their village and pillaging and bulldozing houses.
Huge demonstartions in Hama and Aleppo Friday the 17th. Very inspiring, but not covered very much in the Western media. Solidarity candle-lit "Free Syria" on the lawn in Canberra, Australia.
Once again, I'm having difficulty posting this from a computer with Windows 7.
Huge demonstartions in Hama and Aleppo Friday the 17th. Very inspiring, but not covered very much in the Western media. Solidarity candle-lit "Free Syria" on the lawn in Canberra, Australia.
Once again, I'm having difficulty posting this from a computer with Windows 7.
Café de Flore, Paris Syrian gov's gallantry toward Hama' farming women?
Today, Saturday 18 June after the Friday mass demonstrations against the Regime of Bashar al-Assad, BBC TV showed film footage one of their reporters got by going right through the Turkish border into a part of Syria. He interviewed an Syrian woman wearing her long blue robe and a white scarf over her head. She reminded us of those wonderful, proud, Palestinian women with their embroidered black robes selling fruit and vegetables in the main market of Gaza City. (above, Café de Flore, Paris)
6/17/2011
Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop - Cultural musings on Syria's Ma'arrat al-Numan struggle
Pendant que l'armée syrienne continue d'assiéger la petite ville--maintenant grande--de Ma'arrat al-Numan, je pense à Abu 'Ila Al-Ma'arri le grand pessimiste du moyen age. N'est-ce vrai que l'attaque contre cette ville est la lutte contre le Voltairisme -c.a.d. contre la liberte dans la croyance personelle-- que Abu Ala a introduit dans la pensée au moyen age?
How wrong the Obamas and Defense Secretary Gates have it, in supporting the conservative religious forces in the world...just like Assad going against the memory of Abu 'Ila Al-Naman who contributed so much to making religion a personal, freedom of thought thing. I wonder if that is why Assad is beseiging so fiercely this little town--now quite big--were Abu 'Ia Al-Ma'arri was from.
How wrong the Obamas and Defense Secretary Gates have it, in supporting the conservative religious forces in the world...just like Assad going against the memory of Abu 'Ila Al-Naman who contributed so much to making religion a personal, freedom of thought thing. I wonder if that is why Assad is beseiging so fiercely this little town--now quite big--were Abu 'Ia Al-Ma'arri was from.
McNamara Ground Operations Coffee Machine Political reflection
There is a certain similarity between The Imperialists' governments and the Syrian and Lybian police states these days. Both are blaming Al-qa'ida for their domestic repression. Just as in the US, one cannot say such things--except here anonymously--same in Syria. Of course much worse in Syria, where now eight thousand people have had to flee the northern cities of Jiser al-Shughur and another city in Idlib province into Turkey. I could see from the faces in the crowd of the pro-Assad rally Wednesday the 15th? that Assad is able to rally the better-off middle bourgeoisie. It seems to be the farmers who are moving politically in this rich farming country.
6/14/2011
Care de Flore, Paris
Terrible problems with Blogger.com. I can't change what I publish. Anyway, here's a link to what I am thinking about as the events in Syria transpire.
Louis Massignon's preface to Al-Qasimi's "Industries of Damascus"
Louis Massignon's preface to Al-Qasimi's "Industries of Damascus"
6/09/2011
Shati' tea and falafel shop "Jim Baker's Blue Jay Yarn," by Mark Twain
To experience Yosemite the way my mother, an old Californian, whose mother started the Save the Redwoods League, you should stay at "Housekeeping Camp" of the Yosemite National Park service. But you have to book long in advance for the summer months. I don't know if they let the burning logs fall off El Capitan at night, and if there is piano in the outdoors in the valley. I remember the funny song, "I'm an acompanist..the guy who never gets into the act." I heard that at Yosemite. It is something to see, that great cliff, cheared off like a half-loaf in the valley there in front of the Ahwahnee Hotel.
Here's a link, in old Macintosh Geneva font, to Mark Twain's "Bluejay Yarn" Chapter Three in A Tramp Abroad, where he ends with:
"Well, sir, they roosted around here on the housetop and the trees for
an hour, and guffawed over that thing like human beings. It ain't any
use to tell me a bluejay hasn't got a sense of humor, because I know
better. And memory, too. They brought jays here from all over the United
States to look down that hole, every summer for three years. Other
birds, too. And they could all see the point except an owl that come
from Nova Scotia to visit the Yo Semite, and he took this thing in on
his way back. He said he couldn't see anything funny in it. But then he
was a good deal disappointed about Yo Semite, too."
6/04/2011
From my apartment, faxing Obama...with a grapefruit from S. Lebanon coast
P.O. Box 1745
KFUPM
Dhahran 31261
Saudi Arabia
The President of the US
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
June 4, 2011
Dear Mr. President,
Greetings again. I am the writer of a May 19 fax and email expressing my distress that Dominique Strauss Kahn was in prison, ending with the following plea to you that something be done so that he not have to spend more nights in his cell on Reiker's Island.
"Would George Washington have put General Lafayette in New York prison if he had been a little bit "French" and over gallant with the ladies at a cotillion at Mount Vernon? Come on!
...You ran on "cosmopolitanism." Please intervene: maybe even make a visit to DSK in prison so that they would treat him a little better, at least."
They did treat him a little better, whether because of my fax or my prayers, or something the White House did; he is now awaiting trial in a comfortable place and the media has moved on to other things.
Nevertheless, the discovery that I could send messages to you, has encouraged me to pass on to you some "remarks to the younger generation," as I am sort of a dinosaur, having actually been alive (in the US) during the 1967 events, and in their aftermath (in Lebanon and Egypt) which you mentioned in your "67 borders with swaps" speech to the State Department employees.
In response to your "swaps," Natanyahu used the word "indefensible" for the 1967 borders. I woiuld agree that Abba Eban's lies, during the televised UN debates during the 1967 war, to rationalise Israel's grasping of the West Bank from Jordan were, indeed indefensible arguments. It is good that Natanyahu reminded us, obliquely, as does UN resolution 242, that Israel's land grab in 1967 was indefensible. Of course Natanyahu didn't mean that he agreed that Abba Eban made a false, "indefensible" argument at the UN. He meant "undefendable-not able to be defended"--to him, unless the seacoast and farmland of Israel has a land buffer, with settlements, in the occupied West Bank, it is is not able to defend itself from all the weaponry which President Assad of Syria, the Military Care-taker government of Egypt, and King Abdullah of Jordan are known to have.
As for your use of "swaps," --though it is nice and American, and seems to come right out of Mark Twain's, "Tom Sawyer," ---there is nothing left for the Palestinians to swap! What they had--the five hundred agricultural villages, the whole system of rain catching systems, of organic irrigation--were bulldozed and most of the inhabitants expelled in 1948. When I had the word "swaps" in my Engineering English course for Saudi students here, I couldn't find a word to give the Arabic translation of swaps, but after your speech, Al-Arabiyya TV translated it as "tabadul," exchange.
Back to my sympathy for France--let's remember that French, not English, is still a much more precise language for diplomacy, especially in light of Natanyahu's sloppy use of "indefensible," when he meant to gloss over his delusion that Israel, with an atomic bomb and everything, is "undefendable" against Assad, Tantawi, and Abdullah. The Arab countries agreed to the French wording of UN resolution 242, which says Israel must withdraw from "des territoires occupées" --"des," being understood as a contraction of "de" and "les," from THE occupied territories. (The Arabic of 242, is even more precise, since it says withdrawal from "the;" Al- the famous Al-, which has given us so many technical words (we are not that far from the transmission of the pre-Socratics, through Aristotle, to Europe, by Avicenna) like algorithm, alloy, algebra, etc,. The English, on the other hand says, "from occupied territories," which is not clear whether it means calling on Israel to withdraw from all the occupied territories or just from the occasional, or "some," occupied territories. Your "swaps," is just the civil war-Mark-Twain-19th century version of the English version of Resolution 242, and I commend you for animating, in this way, the rather stale English version of 242. (We English teachers always dream of teaching English as a Second Language with Literature, especially Literature of the caliber of Mark Twain or Hemmingway; but we're stuck with TOEFL -Test of English as A Foreign Language- like the history of Coca Cola, Betsy Ross, Paul Revere, the Grand Canyon, and the Gemini Space probe)
However, Natanyahu's misuse of "indefensible" opens the door to taking him up on his English and saying to him, "yes, what Israel did to the Palestinians in 1948, and then again in 1967 is indefensible." Also, what Israel is doing to the land is indefensible. I wish, with the new emphasis on the fight to live ecologically on an ecological planet, somebody would point out that the Arizona-style irrigation systems that Israel put in place, bulldozing over the centuries-old systems that the Palestinians had developed over millennia, are desiccating the land. The aquifers from the northern lakes are being used to pump excessive water into areas where the Palestinians formerly caught the winter rain water and used an elaborate system, developed in the Arabian peninsula during the Roman period--actually transmitted to Roman engineers by the Arabs, probably--and perfected in the Omayyad period, in Syria (c.f. Nelson Glueck's study of the Nabatean irrigation systems of the Negev desert, "Rivers in the Desert." and physical remains of Arab dams and water collecting works in Spanish Andalusia).
I think most Jewish citizens of Israel would agree that the continued refusal of their government to abide by UN resolution 242, which also states that the Palestinians must have the right to return to 1948 Israel, is also indefensible, untenable, and unnecessary. The Palestinians would be glad to live together with the Israelis in their old land, and the modern Israelis who colonized the land no longer need to be on a constant war footing: there is no more talk of fighting Assad, Tantawi, or Abdulla from the hawks, or the doves, in Israel "because of a ship sailing through the straits of Tiran"-this was the excuse Abba Eban and Moshe Dyan gave in 1967 for dropping red-hot walls of Michigan-made, Dow Chemical Napalm on the Egyptian Sinai to take Gaza and the Sinai. The Israelis are pooped out, and no longer enthusiastic about being "fortress Israel" on a constant war footing. They need a democratic secular Palestine. What would happen if they let the Palestinians back in and they worked together to save the land? It would be great! And it would be a shining example of the old civilized days when Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived together fruitfully throughout the Middle East and transmitted their techniques--soap, Alchemy(Chemistry), Hippocratic-Avicennian Medicine, farming(the farmers Almanac), new vegetables from India and Iran(egg-plant-aubergine, Jaffa oranges). It would have repercussions all over, as the ancient systems of working with the existing water came back to the fore,
I know it is hard to change old ways of thinking in the State Department. They won't forgive the Students in Tehran for taking over the US Embassy after the downfall of the Shah--all this talk against the Iranian nukes is the old State Department line of anger that Carter's restoration of the Shah didn't work. Israel's paranoia about Hizbolla in Lebanon is just because the Israeli army got a little licking in I-forget-when and had to leave Tyre, where residents (in exile in Dearborn, MI) say they saw Israeli archaeologists doing the craziest of things--looking for gold under Hiram's tomb! And all this talk of Hamas being a "terrorist" organization is just because most of the Gazan's are refugees kicked out from Majdal (where Mary Magdalene was from and from which she was kicked out by the Romans and went to Saintes Maries de la Mer in France), and from all the coastal towns bulldozed south of Jaffa. (The coastal road is nothing today but cement highways, tenement houses, parched earth..and the 9th century Arab new town of Ramla, which is now known as one of the most notorious oubliettes for Palestinian prisoners, but used to be all orange and olive groves like southern Lebanon and the Gaza strip itself.) Hamas and Fateh are just tweedle dumb and tweedle dee, like the Democratic and Republican Parties in the US. Yasser Arafat's Fateh was deemed to be a terrorist organization by Sharon, who bulldozed Jenin and Ramalla and cornered Arafat in his building, which "proved," by military war that he was a terrorist. The same for Hamas. If you don't recognize the two-state solution, and prefer to hold out for your right, explicit even in UN Resolugion 242, to live alongside the Israelis in your old farming land, you are a "terrorist."
Finally, one more speaking gambit that Natanyahu opened while you were in Ireland, and he was speaking before the House of Representatives was that he expressed concern that Israel is seen as "the bad guy," and that this is not so: he went on to say how the Palestinians within 1948 Israel proper have a kind of democracy that forms a beacon to the youth fighting for employment and rights in the farming villages and cities of Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, etc. But it is not to the youth outside the "sixty-seven borders with swaps" that the Palestinian citizens inside Israel are important. They are important because they are within the belly of the beast, as it were, and work alongside, or at least have the potential to work alongside the Israelis and explain that they can live together and explain that there is a need for a return of the refugees and, thus, for a democratic Israel. It is a tough thing to explain, given the kind of walls between Israelis and Palestinians living in Israel. The Palestinians need a little help from the international community explaining how, indeed, Israel is a colonial settler state--it is sort of the "bad guy"-- yet, the colonists are there now, and yet, and yet, we still need to live with these colonists. It is a matter of water or no water, of life or death, of the land, or of no-land, of the most beautifully designed medieval city in the world(Arab Jerusalem), or a desert without history, of restoring the 500 bulldozed hilltop villages with their natural rain-catching streets and cisterns, or only cement tenements and prisons. It is a matter of patria o muerte, as Che would say. I have attached the famous article Max Rodinson published--a pdf of the French article he got printed in Sartre's "Les Temps Modernes"--to help start helping explain the hiatus that Netanyahu gave us a peek into, in his speech to the House of Representatives.
In concluding, as we watch the Druze of the Hauran(Der'aa, and environs) take up the cudgels to fight for independence in Syria--just as the Hauran started the revolt against the French after Sykes Picot at the end of WW 1--it is a pleasure to recount to you, Mr. President--Ah, can I call you, my slim, elegant hero, like I like to think that I was, too, at your age?--these reflections from the Jurassic period so pertinent to today.
Sincerely,
3011
P.S. If I don't get an automated response within a few days saying no, I will take it that the white house wouldn't mind if I published this, without my signature, on my anonymous blog, which nobody reads anyway, at www.mediterraneancoffeeshops.blogspot.com
5/26/2011
Shati' tea and falafel shop "67 borders with swaps" Obama, Tom Sawyer, and Hemmingway
Swaps, what do the Palestinians have left to swap?
But the mere fact that Obama went back that far in history, shows the effect of the Egyptian revolution, which has opened the Gaza crossing, and persuaded Hamas and Fateh to form a government of unity. It has got Obama to get out of his rocking chair in the White House and go off to Europe to talk and give speeches about the Arab Spring...all this to cover for the upcoming vote in the General Assembly for an independent state in what's left of what Israel took in 1967--the west bank of the Jordan river. Even though he's already saying that the US delegation in the Security council will veto the General Assembly decision creating a west bank Palestinian state, Obama is giving speech after speech in Europe about how much he supports the Arab spring. Even Natanyahu came to preach his repertoire of historical lies to the US House of Representatives, leaving his secure rocking chair in Israel for a moment.
But I call this blog from Shate'i tea and falafel shop, Gaza, my cultural blog. This is because of Obama's curious use of the word, "swaps". It sounds like something right out of Tom Sawyer. He likes to be "real American" these days; so I guess the Tom Sawyer allusion makes him seem really American, as opposed to "Israeli" which it is.
Nice festival in Cuba, though for the Hemingway fishing competition. I bought the old man and the sea, Al-Shaikh wa Al-Bahr, in Arabic tonight at Jariir.
But the mere fact that Obama went back that far in history, shows the effect of the Egyptian revolution, which has opened the Gaza crossing, and persuaded Hamas and Fateh to form a government of unity. It has got Obama to get out of his rocking chair in the White House and go off to Europe to talk and give speeches about the Arab Spring...all this to cover for the upcoming vote in the General Assembly for an independent state in what's left of what Israel took in 1967--the west bank of the Jordan river. Even though he's already saying that the US delegation in the Security council will veto the General Assembly decision creating a west bank Palestinian state, Obama is giving speech after speech in Europe about how much he supports the Arab spring. Even Natanyahu came to preach his repertoire of historical lies to the US House of Representatives, leaving his secure rocking chair in Israel for a moment.
But I call this blog from Shate'i tea and falafel shop, Gaza, my cultural blog. This is because of Obama's curious use of the word, "swaps". It sounds like something right out of Tom Sawyer. He likes to be "real American" these days; so I guess the Tom Sawyer allusion makes him seem really American, as opposed to "Israeli" which it is.
Nice festival in Cuba, though for the Hemingway fishing competition. I bought the old man and the sea, Al-Shaikh wa Al-Bahr, in Arabic tonight at Jariir.
5/17/2011
Café de Flore
Flore, Fishawi, Shati, McNamara
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of
Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.
This is certainly an account of gallantry gone wrong: NY police used its superspy contacts with Homeland Security and ICE to take to court the 21st century head of the IMF, Dominique Straus Khan (DSK), the heritage of my mother's work at the Bretton Woods Conference helping Mendes France represent the French resistance, then in 1944 post-war collaboration with the US's European strike smashing(especially in Italy) and the setting of the US dollar as the standard in war-torn Europe. What would George Washington have said to see a French leader framed up by New York hotel MBA's, lawyers and managers, denied his right to travel, and put in a New York prison cell to await his chance to prove his innocence. As the competition between Europe and the US tightens during the banking and lending crisis today, we can expect to see more of such jousting at France by the US, even though the first American revolution owed so much to General Lafayette and the French.
What a long sentence that was! And the US president, fresh from his speech touting the "justice" of America's assassination of an old man in pajamas in far away Pakistan, and saying nary a thank-you to Britain, which split off Pakistan from their colony of India and made all the sectarian divisions in Central Asia--sectarian divisions, which the US now benefits from in its policy of holding Central Asia in underdevelopment and opium trade--nary a thank you to Britain for all her soldiers who died in Afghanistan; and now this same ungrateful president doesn't even bother to visit Dominique Straus Khan in Prison. He chit chats in the oval office with the King of Jordan, who has a much more beautiful wife than DSK, and doesn't lift a finger to freeze Bashar Al-Asad's assets (whose wife is also quite beautiful), although other leaders of the Syrian army's attacks on Syrian youth protester have had their Swiss assets sequestered.
There's gallantry for you.
Prisons are terrible things, especially US ones, which have the highest percentage of citizens behind bars of any country in the world. Dominique Strauss Khan should not be humiliated in this way. He is an elegant, convivial man, well known as a good conversationalist with women. He could not have molested any woman working at the Sofitel. The Americans must really hate the French, or perhaps it is just the New York police relishing the recent vist by President Obama to New York, and feeling they can do anything now that this presidential assassin of the man in pajamas in Pakistan(Ben Ladin) has graced New York with his presence. Will he have the courtesy to intervene in Dominique Strauss Khan's frame-up? Doubtful that he will. Could it be that the New York police are so stupid that they thought Khan was Pakistani?
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of
Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.
This is certainly an account of gallantry gone wrong: NY police used its superspy contacts with Homeland Security and ICE to take to court the 21st century head of the IMF, Dominique Straus Khan (DSK), the heritage of my mother's work at the Bretton Woods Conference helping Mendes France represent the French resistance, then in 1944 post-war collaboration with the US's European strike smashing(especially in Italy) and the setting of the US dollar as the standard in war-torn Europe. What would George Washington have said to see a French leader framed up by New York hotel MBA's, lawyers and managers, denied his right to travel, and put in a New York prison cell to await his chance to prove his innocence. As the competition between Europe and the US tightens during the banking and lending crisis today, we can expect to see more of such jousting at France by the US, even though the first American revolution owed so much to General Lafayette and the French.
What a long sentence that was! And the US president, fresh from his speech touting the "justice" of America's assassination of an old man in pajamas in far away Pakistan, and saying nary a thank-you to Britain, which split off Pakistan from their colony of India and made all the sectarian divisions in Central Asia--sectarian divisions, which the US now benefits from in its policy of holding Central Asia in underdevelopment and opium trade--nary a thank you to Britain for all her soldiers who died in Afghanistan; and now this same ungrateful president doesn't even bother to visit Dominique Straus Khan in Prison. He chit chats in the oval office with the King of Jordan, who has a much more beautiful wife than DSK, and doesn't lift a finger to freeze Bashar Al-Asad's assets (whose wife is also quite beautiful), although other leaders of the Syrian army's attacks on Syrian youth protester have had their Swiss assets sequestered.
There's gallantry for you.
Prisons are terrible things, especially US ones, which have the highest percentage of citizens behind bars of any country in the world. Dominique Strauss Khan should not be humiliated in this way. He is an elegant, convivial man, well known as a good conversationalist with women. He could not have molested any woman working at the Sofitel. The Americans must really hate the French, or perhaps it is just the New York police relishing the recent vist by President Obama to New York, and feeling they can do anything now that this presidential assassin of the man in pajamas in Pakistan(Ben Ladin) has graced New York with his presence. Will he have the courtesy to intervene in Dominique Strauss Khan's frame-up? Doubtful that he will. Could it be that the New York police are so stupid that they thought Khan was Pakistani?
5/15/2011
Macnamara Ground Ops Coffee Machine the Palestinians begin to move!
Oui, aujourd'hui les palestiniens ont commencé leur printemps arabe, pendant que l'armée syrienne était préoccupée à tuer les gens de Homs fuyant les chars syriens par le village de Tel Kalakh vers la frontière libanaise.
Tel Kalakh, n'est-il pas un site archéologique? Ugarit?
Tel Kalakh, n'est-il pas un site archéologique? Ugarit?
5/12/2011
Al-Shati' Tea and Falafel shop, Gaza Jaffa orange season
I bought some beautiful Jaffa oranges at the university coop store the day before yesterday, and today saw that they had sold out all the boxes of Shammouti oranges. This is the season of the Jaffa oranges, May. The photo was taken the 26 of March, 2010; so I guess one could say the season is late March to late May.
5/05/2011
Macnamara Ground Ops Coffee Machine, extrait du Monde pendant qu' Obama vistie Ground Zero
Fidel Castro juge "odieux" l'assassinat de Ben Laden
LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 05.05.11 | 18h12 • Mis à jour le 05.05.11 | 18h13
Dans l'une de ses "réflexions" régulièrement publiées par la presse officielle cubaine, l'ex-président Fidel Castro a estimé jeudi 5 mai que "l'odieux assassinat" d'Oussama Ben Laden allait "multiplier les sentiments de haine et de vengeance" contre le peuple des Etats-Unis au lieu de le protéger.
"Quels que soient les actes attribués à Ben Laden, l'assassinat d'un être humain désarmé et entouré de sa famille constitue un acte odieux", estime le père de la révolution cubaine, déplorant qu'"apparemment c'est ce qu'a fait le gouvernement de la nation la plus puissante qui ait jamais existé". Le président Barack "Obama n'a pas les moyens de cacher qu'Oussama a été tué en présence de ses enfants et de ses épouses" au Pakistan, pays "dont les lois ont été violées, la dignité nationale offensée et les traditions religieuses outragées".
"CRAINTE ET INSÉCURITÉ"
"Comment va-t-il empêcher maintenant que les épouses et les enfants de la personne exécutée en dehors de toute loi expliquent ce qui s'est passé et que ces images soient transmises dans le monde entier ? s'interroge Fidel Castro, 84 ans, qui a abandonné le pouvoir en 2006 pour des raisons de santé. Assassiner (Ben Laden) et le jeter dans les profondeurs de la mer démontre crainte et insécurité et le transforme en un personnage encore plus dangereux."
Rappelant aussi la référence faite par Obama aux victimes du 11-Septembre, Fidel Castro rappelle "les millions" de victimes des "guerres injustes déclenchées par les Etats-Unis en Irak, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodge, Cuba et de nombreux autres pays". "Le terrorisme international ne se résoudra jamais par la violence et la guerre", conclut l'ancien leader révolutionnaire.
LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 05.05.11 | 18h12 • Mis à jour le 05.05.11 | 18h13
Dans l'une de ses "réflexions" régulièrement publiées par la presse officielle cubaine, l'ex-président Fidel Castro a estimé jeudi 5 mai que "l'odieux assassinat" d'Oussama Ben Laden allait "multiplier les sentiments de haine et de vengeance" contre le peuple des Etats-Unis au lieu de le protéger.
"Quels que soient les actes attribués à Ben Laden, l'assassinat d'un être humain désarmé et entouré de sa famille constitue un acte odieux", estime le père de la révolution cubaine, déplorant qu'"apparemment c'est ce qu'a fait le gouvernement de la nation la plus puissante qui ait jamais existé". Le président Barack "Obama n'a pas les moyens de cacher qu'Oussama a été tué en présence de ses enfants et de ses épouses" au Pakistan, pays "dont les lois ont été violées, la dignité nationale offensée et les traditions religieuses outragées".
"CRAINTE ET INSÉCURITÉ"
"Comment va-t-il empêcher maintenant que les épouses et les enfants de la personne exécutée en dehors de toute loi expliquent ce qui s'est passé et que ces images soient transmises dans le monde entier ? s'interroge Fidel Castro, 84 ans, qui a abandonné le pouvoir en 2006 pour des raisons de santé. Assassiner (Ben Laden) et le jeter dans les profondeurs de la mer démontre crainte et insécurité et le transforme en un personnage encore plus dangereux."
Rappelant aussi la référence faite par Obama aux victimes du 11-Septembre, Fidel Castro rappelle "les millions" de victimes des "guerres injustes déclenchées par les Etats-Unis en Irak, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodge, Cuba et de nombreux autres pays". "Le terrorisme international ne se résoudra jamais par la violence et la guerre", conclut l'ancien leader révolutionnaire.
5/02/2011
Macnamara Ground Ops Coffee Machine, Romulus "le Cid-القائد
Toute commentaire politique sera du lieu de travaille a l'aeroport de Detroit, devant la machinea café du cafeteria. Dom Rodrique es devenu le cid, le qaa'id, à la fin de la piece de Corneille.
Voila ma commentaire politique le jour le nouveau président americain, Obama, continue à mal prononcer qa'ida, en disant qaida, comme Bush, ce dont nous autres, les profs d'angais, se servent pour expliquer le present continuous: 'en train de,' "qaida al hiyat". Nous devons faire attention en le faisant, de risque que le nouveau chef du service d'espionnage americain, le cheri du congress, Petreus, pense que nous autres les profs d'anglais organisent leur qaida. Mais tous ce que nous faisons, c'est d'enseigner l'anglais.
LE COMTE
Jeune présomtueux.
D. RODRIGUE
Parle sans t'émouvoir.
Je suis jeune, il est vrai; mais aux ames bien nées
La valeur n'attend point le nombre des années.
LECOMTE
Te mesurer à moi! qui t'a rendu si vain,
Toi, qu'on n'a jamais vu les armes à la main?
D.RODRIGUE
Mes pareils à deux fois ne se font point connaitre,
Et pour leurs coups d'essai veulent des coups de maitre.
LE COMTE
Sais-tu bien qui je suis?
D. RODRIGUE
Oui; tout autre que moi
Au seul bruit de ton nom pourroit trembler d'effroi.
Les palmes dont je vois ta tete si couverte
Sembloent porter ecrit le destin de ma perte.
J'attaque en témréraire un bras toujous vainqueur;
Mais j'aurai trop de force ayant assez de coeur.
A qui venge son pere il n'est rien d'impossible.
Ton bras est invaince, mais n'est pas invincible.
Voila ma commentaire politique le jour le nouveau président americain, Obama, continue à mal prononcer qa'ida, en disant qaida, comme Bush, ce dont nous autres, les profs d'angais, se servent pour expliquer le present continuous: 'en train de,' "qaida al hiyat". Nous devons faire attention en le faisant, de risque que le nouveau chef du service d'espionnage americain, le cheri du congress, Petreus, pense que nous autres les profs d'anglais organisent leur qaida. Mais tous ce que nous faisons, c'est d'enseigner l'anglais.
LE COMTE
Jeune présomtueux.
D. RODRIGUE
Parle sans t'émouvoir.
Je suis jeune, il est vrai; mais aux ames bien nées
La valeur n'attend point le nombre des années.
LECOMTE
Te mesurer à moi! qui t'a rendu si vain,
Toi, qu'on n'a jamais vu les armes à la main?
D.RODRIGUE
Mes pareils à deux fois ne se font point connaitre,
Et pour leurs coups d'essai veulent des coups de maitre.
LE COMTE
Sais-tu bien qui je suis?
D. RODRIGUE
Oui; tout autre que moi
Au seul bruit de ton nom pourroit trembler d'effroi.
Les palmes dont je vois ta tete si couverte
Sembloent porter ecrit le destin de ma perte.
J'attaque en témréraire un bras toujous vainqueur;
Mais j'aurai trop de force ayant assez de coeur.
A qui venge son pere il n'est rien d'impossible.
Ton bras est invaince, mais n'est pas invincible.
4/29/2011
Shati' tea and falafel shop Nabdat Ali dates
All discussion of culture shall be from Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza
The Nabdat Ali date, "plant of Ali" has a taste of the hot morning of the spring desert, with a slight hit of better-sweet, grassy smell of desert daisies. There is a mixture of sweetness, of course like a chewy cinnamon stick mixed with raw sugar cane, and the desert hyacinth.
4/24/2011
McNamara Airport Ground Operations - Coffee Machine
«Vive la Commune! »
la Commune de Paris a 140ans. Pour I'occasion, I'Hotelde Ville de Paris presente des documents, affiches et manuscrits originaux dans le cadre de I'exposition« La Commune, 1871, Paris, capitale insurgee». Cette retrospective pennet de tout comprendre de !'insurrection du printemps 1871. « La commune: une histoire moderne», sur le site des Cordeliers (Paris, 6'), rappelle les grands chantiers ouverts par la revolte (separation de l'Eglise et de I'Etat, abolition de la peine de mort, emancipation des femmes). D'autres expositions et animations se tiennent dans les mairies d'arrondissement. Celie du 11', dernier lieu de reunion des Communards, est bien sur de la fete. Partout en France, on celebre aussi le soulevement: en region parisienne, a Narbonne (Aude), Chateauroux (Indre), Woippy (Moselle) et Baugy (Cher), ville natale de Gabriel Ranvier, qui proclama « Vive la commune!» le 28 mars, sur la place de I'Hotel de Ville de Paris. Jusqu'a l'abbaye de Neuminster, au Luxembourg_ • Melina Gazsi (PHOTOS BHVP-ROGER VIOLLET) « « La Commune. 1871, Paris, capitaIe insurgee», Hotel de Ville de Paris, 29, rue de Rivoli. Paris 4" Jusqu'au 28 mai Entree gratuite. Tel . 01-42-76-5153. «La Commune: une histoire moderne». les Cordeliers.15, rue de l'Ecolede-Medecine, Paris 6'. du 28 mai au 19 juin Commune 1871org
Photos en pdf
la Commune de Paris a 140ans. Pour I'occasion, I'Hotelde Ville de Paris presente des documents, affiches et manuscrits originaux dans le cadre de I'exposition« La Commune, 1871, Paris, capitale insurgee». Cette retrospective pennet de tout comprendre de !'insurrection du printemps 1871. « La commune: une histoire moderne», sur le site des Cordeliers (Paris, 6'), rappelle les grands chantiers ouverts par la revolte (separation de l'Eglise et de I'Etat, abolition de la peine de mort, emancipation des femmes). D'autres expositions et animations se tiennent dans les mairies d'arrondissement. Celie du 11', dernier lieu de reunion des Communards, est bien sur de la fete. Partout en France, on celebre aussi le soulevement: en region parisienne, a Narbonne (Aude), Chateauroux (Indre), Woippy (Moselle) et Baugy (Cher), ville natale de Gabriel Ranvier, qui proclama « Vive la commune!» le 28 mars, sur la place de I'Hotel de Ville de Paris. Jusqu'a l'abbaye de Neuminster, au Luxembourg_ • Melina Gazsi (PHOTOS BHVP-ROGER VIOLLET) « « La Commune. 1871, Paris, capitaIe insurgee», Hotel de Ville de Paris, 29, rue de Rivoli. Paris 4" Jusqu'au 28 mai Entree gratuite. Tel . 01-42-76-5153. «La Commune: une histoire moderne». les Cordeliers.15, rue de l'Ecolede-Medecine, Paris 6'. du 28 mai au 19 juin Commune 1871org
Photos en pdf
4/19/2011
Paris, Café de Flore...Fetes Gallantes de Verlaine
Rimbaud, qui a ecrit le bateau ivre peut-etre pour Verlaine? Tous les deux ont vecu la commune.
3/25/2011
Dunkin' Donuts Coffee Shop, Dhahran, sa where oil was discovered first
Et maintenent les émeutes commencent en Syrie. Hier la police syrienne a tué une centaine de gens a Der'a. Al-Arabiyya avait un lien directe au telephone de quelqu'un qui était temoin. Il répétait, "Aidez nous! Ou sont les droits humains!"
C'est normale d'écrire au sujet de la police d'un café "Dunkin' Donuts," puisque dans le pays du TOEFL, c'est dans ces cafés-la que les agents de police s'arettent la nuit pour un moment de repos dans leur nuits de harcellement des opprimés.
C'est plus souvent la politique napolénienne française qui parle des droits humains --plus souvent que la politique TOEFLiènne des EU--et la politique des droits humains se trouve meme encore plus souvent dans les pays sous devellopées comme la Syrie ou l'arabie saoudite. En voici un article en arabe sur les droits humains dans le monde arabe, écrit par un éleve du college des maitres de Jeddah qui est maintenant le département pour obtenir un certificat dite "d'education."
mes excuses pour l'alignement gauche de l'arabe
التربية على حقوق الإنسان
بقلم : نزار حربي
تعتبر التربية على حقوق الإنسان موضوعا حديثا نسبيا في العالم العربي. ومن الواضح لدينا أن هناك اهتماما كبيرا في الأقطار العربية كافة للعمل على نشر التربية على حقوق الإنسان بين فئات المجتمع العربي. وهناك اتجاه حديث لدمج التربية على حقوق الإنسان في المناهج الدراسية الحديثة ، وذلك انطلاقا من توصيات الأمم المتحدة وخاصة برنامج عمل فيينا الذي نص على ما يلي:
" يؤكد المؤتمر العالمي لحقوق الإنسان من جديد أن الواجب يحتم على الدول... أن تضمن أن يكون التعليم مستهدِفا تقوية احترام حقوق الإنسان والحريات الأساسية . ويؤكد المؤتمر... أهمية إدراج موضوع حقوق الإنسان في برامج التعليم ، ويطلب إلى الدول القيام بذلك ".
وواضح تماما من هذا النص أن جميع دول العالم مطالبة بالعمل على الربط بين المناهج التعليمية من جهة وبين حقوق الإنسان من جهة أخرى.
ويمكن القول أن موضوع حقوق الإنسان هو موضوع جديد نسبيا . وهناك حذر ملحوظ في تناول هذا الموضوع أو معالجته بحجة أنه يمثل الفكر الغربي الحديث والثقافة الغربية الحديثة . وهذا الكلام غير صحيح إطلاقا. والسبب في ذلك أن الإسلام هذا الدين العظيم قد أقام حقوق الإنسان في أرجا المعمورة قبل أربعة عشر قرنا . وقد سبق لذلك الفكر التربوي الغربي الحديث ، وحقوق الإنسان بمفهومها الغربي الأوروبي الأمريكي . يقول تعالى:
﴿ ولقد كرمنا بني آدم في البر والبحر ورزقناهم من الطيبات وفضلناهم على كثير مما خلقنا تفضيلا ﴾.
وقد بلغت حقوق الإنسان قمتها في الإسلام حينما قال المصطفى عليه أفضل الصلاة والسلام:
أيها الناس إن ربكم واحد وإن أباكم واحد كلكم لآدم وآدم من تراب... ليس لعربي على عجمي ولا لعجمي على عربي ولا لأحمر على أبيض ولا لأبيض على أحمر فضل إلا بالتقوى.
وحول احترام الإسلام لحقوق الإنسان يقول العلامة خفاجي ما يلي:
إن مفاخر الإسلام في احترامه لحقوق الإنسان وتأييده وحمايته لها وفي وضعه لأصول التقدم الأدبي والروحي والاجتماعي ، وفي إيقاظه الروح الإنساني العام ، لهي مفاخر جديرة بالإشادة والتقدير: حرية بأن نفهمها ونتدبر معانيها ونقتبس من أصولها ما يحيي الروح ويوقظ العزيمة وينبه راقد الفكر في شتى أرجاء العالم الإسلامي. وإن الخير كل الخير في أن ينتبه الشرق ... إلى أصول دعوة الإسلام التي جهلها وتناسها وتركها. وإنه لحري بالمسلمين جميعا أن يأخذوا بتعاليم الرسول محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم بغير تنقيح أو تعديل وأن تطبق تطبيقا صحيحا ليسعد الناس وتستقر الجماعات وتهدأ الفتن (محمد عبدالمنعم خفاجي، الإسلام والحضارة الإنسانية، بيروت ، دار الكتاب اللبناني، ص24).
وفي هذا الصدد ينوه بعض الباحثين بإقامة الإسلام للمجتمع الفاضل . يقول الغامدي:
" ولكي يعيش الإنسان بأمان فإن الإسلام عمد إلى إقامة مجتمع فاضل يقوم أساسا على التكافل العائلي والاجتماعي والاقتصادي المفضي إلى التوازن الاجتماعي فتكون محصلة ذلك جميعه العدالة الاجتماعية . إذ في سد حاجات الفرد الأساسية بالطرق المشروعة وصيانة حقه وحريته وتوفير الضمانات لذلك كله يرى أنه غير مغبون . وفي هذا المناخ الاجتماعي الصالح يكون الإنسان الصالح" . (انظر : عبداللطيف بن سعيد الغامدي، حقوق الإنسان في الإسلام ، الرياض، 2000، ص89).
ومن الواضح لدينا أن الإنسانية بعامة قد وجدت : " ضالتها المنشودة في الإسلام فاجتمع في الإسلام صهيب الرومي وسلمان الفارسي وبلال الحبشي ... آخى بينهم الإسلام وانصهروا في بوتقته ... وإن فتح الإسلام لكثير من البلاد والأمصار لم يكن مسوغا بأية حال من الأحوال لاستعبادهم وإذلالهم وإنما كان يحفظ لهم حريتهم ويصون لهم كرامتهم . ولا يفرض عليهم الإيمان به دون ما اقتناع . وإنما كان هناك الخيار لهم" ( انظر: ماهر خليل، نظريات الغرب وحضارته في ميزان الإسلام، القاهرة الهيئة العامة المطابع الأميرية، 1986، ص56).
وعودة إلى حقوق الإنسان والتربية على حقوق الإنسان في العالم العربي، فإن بعض الباحثين يذهبون إلى القول بأن للتربية على حقوق الإنسان تأثيرات تعمل لصالح المجتمع. يقرر غانم، والشحام: " أن انتشار التربية على حقوق الإنسان في العالم العربي سوف يعني – بالضرورة – تمتع المواطنين العرب بالحقوق الأساسية المعروفة : العدل ، والمساواة ، وتكافؤ الفرص ، والبيئة النظيفة ، والإنترنت ، والتنمية" . ويضيفان إلى ذلك بروز أنماط جديدة من الفكر العقلاني هي :
1. التنشئة الديمقراطية المعتدلة.
2. التنمية السياسية .
3. خطاب الاعتدال ( غانم ، والشحام ، 2005 ، ص1 ) .
وهناك مبررات عدة لذلك أهمها : تزايد المشكلات ليس في بلدان العالم الثالث بل في العالم الغربي، وبروز العولمة بأفكارها التوسعية الرأس مالية العابرة للحدود والقارات ولا شك أن التربية على حقوق الإنسان هي إحدى أدوات الإنسان الحديث للعقلانية واحترام الذات.
كاتب المقال : نزار حربي
C'est normale d'écrire au sujet de la police d'un café "Dunkin' Donuts," puisque dans le pays du TOEFL, c'est dans ces cafés-la que les agents de police s'arettent la nuit pour un moment de repos dans leur nuits de harcellement des opprimés.
C'est plus souvent la politique napolénienne française qui parle des droits humains --plus souvent que la politique TOEFLiènne des EU--et la politique des droits humains se trouve meme encore plus souvent dans les pays sous devellopées comme la Syrie ou l'arabie saoudite. En voici un article en arabe sur les droits humains dans le monde arabe, écrit par un éleve du college des maitres de Jeddah qui est maintenant le département pour obtenir un certificat dite "d'education."
mes excuses pour l'alignement gauche de l'arabe
التربية على حقوق الإنسان
بقلم : نزار حربي
تعتبر التربية على حقوق الإنسان موضوعا حديثا نسبيا في العالم العربي. ومن الواضح لدينا أن هناك اهتماما كبيرا في الأقطار العربية كافة للعمل على نشر التربية على حقوق الإنسان بين فئات المجتمع العربي. وهناك اتجاه حديث لدمج التربية على حقوق الإنسان في المناهج الدراسية الحديثة ، وذلك انطلاقا من توصيات الأمم المتحدة وخاصة برنامج عمل فيينا الذي نص على ما يلي:
" يؤكد المؤتمر العالمي لحقوق الإنسان من جديد أن الواجب يحتم على الدول... أن تضمن أن يكون التعليم مستهدِفا تقوية احترام حقوق الإنسان والحريات الأساسية . ويؤكد المؤتمر... أهمية إدراج موضوع حقوق الإنسان في برامج التعليم ، ويطلب إلى الدول القيام بذلك ".
وواضح تماما من هذا النص أن جميع دول العالم مطالبة بالعمل على الربط بين المناهج التعليمية من جهة وبين حقوق الإنسان من جهة أخرى.
ويمكن القول أن موضوع حقوق الإنسان هو موضوع جديد نسبيا . وهناك حذر ملحوظ في تناول هذا الموضوع أو معالجته بحجة أنه يمثل الفكر الغربي الحديث والثقافة الغربية الحديثة . وهذا الكلام غير صحيح إطلاقا. والسبب في ذلك أن الإسلام هذا الدين العظيم قد أقام حقوق الإنسان في أرجا المعمورة قبل أربعة عشر قرنا . وقد سبق لذلك الفكر التربوي الغربي الحديث ، وحقوق الإنسان بمفهومها الغربي الأوروبي الأمريكي . يقول تعالى:
﴿ ولقد كرمنا بني آدم في البر والبحر ورزقناهم من الطيبات وفضلناهم على كثير مما خلقنا تفضيلا ﴾.
وقد بلغت حقوق الإنسان قمتها في الإسلام حينما قال المصطفى عليه أفضل الصلاة والسلام:
أيها الناس إن ربكم واحد وإن أباكم واحد كلكم لآدم وآدم من تراب... ليس لعربي على عجمي ولا لعجمي على عربي ولا لأحمر على أبيض ولا لأبيض على أحمر فضل إلا بالتقوى.
وحول احترام الإسلام لحقوق الإنسان يقول العلامة خفاجي ما يلي:
إن مفاخر الإسلام في احترامه لحقوق الإنسان وتأييده وحمايته لها وفي وضعه لأصول التقدم الأدبي والروحي والاجتماعي ، وفي إيقاظه الروح الإنساني العام ، لهي مفاخر جديرة بالإشادة والتقدير: حرية بأن نفهمها ونتدبر معانيها ونقتبس من أصولها ما يحيي الروح ويوقظ العزيمة وينبه راقد الفكر في شتى أرجاء العالم الإسلامي. وإن الخير كل الخير في أن ينتبه الشرق ... إلى أصول دعوة الإسلام التي جهلها وتناسها وتركها. وإنه لحري بالمسلمين جميعا أن يأخذوا بتعاليم الرسول محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم بغير تنقيح أو تعديل وأن تطبق تطبيقا صحيحا ليسعد الناس وتستقر الجماعات وتهدأ الفتن (محمد عبدالمنعم خفاجي، الإسلام والحضارة الإنسانية، بيروت ، دار الكتاب اللبناني، ص24).
وفي هذا الصدد ينوه بعض الباحثين بإقامة الإسلام للمجتمع الفاضل . يقول الغامدي:
" ولكي يعيش الإنسان بأمان فإن الإسلام عمد إلى إقامة مجتمع فاضل يقوم أساسا على التكافل العائلي والاجتماعي والاقتصادي المفضي إلى التوازن الاجتماعي فتكون محصلة ذلك جميعه العدالة الاجتماعية . إذ في سد حاجات الفرد الأساسية بالطرق المشروعة وصيانة حقه وحريته وتوفير الضمانات لذلك كله يرى أنه غير مغبون . وفي هذا المناخ الاجتماعي الصالح يكون الإنسان الصالح" . (انظر : عبداللطيف بن سعيد الغامدي، حقوق الإنسان في الإسلام ، الرياض، 2000، ص89).
ومن الواضح لدينا أن الإنسانية بعامة قد وجدت : " ضالتها المنشودة في الإسلام فاجتمع في الإسلام صهيب الرومي وسلمان الفارسي وبلال الحبشي ... آخى بينهم الإسلام وانصهروا في بوتقته ... وإن فتح الإسلام لكثير من البلاد والأمصار لم يكن مسوغا بأية حال من الأحوال لاستعبادهم وإذلالهم وإنما كان يحفظ لهم حريتهم ويصون لهم كرامتهم . ولا يفرض عليهم الإيمان به دون ما اقتناع . وإنما كان هناك الخيار لهم" ( انظر: ماهر خليل، نظريات الغرب وحضارته في ميزان الإسلام، القاهرة الهيئة العامة المطابع الأميرية، 1986، ص56).
وعودة إلى حقوق الإنسان والتربية على حقوق الإنسان في العالم العربي، فإن بعض الباحثين يذهبون إلى القول بأن للتربية على حقوق الإنسان تأثيرات تعمل لصالح المجتمع. يقرر غانم، والشحام: " أن انتشار التربية على حقوق الإنسان في العالم العربي سوف يعني – بالضرورة – تمتع المواطنين العرب بالحقوق الأساسية المعروفة : العدل ، والمساواة ، وتكافؤ الفرص ، والبيئة النظيفة ، والإنترنت ، والتنمية" . ويضيفان إلى ذلك بروز أنماط جديدة من الفكر العقلاني هي :
1. التنشئة الديمقراطية المعتدلة.
2. التنمية السياسية .
3. خطاب الاعتدال ( غانم ، والشحام ، 2005 ، ص1 ) .
وهناك مبررات عدة لذلك أهمها : تزايد المشكلات ليس في بلدان العالم الثالث بل في العالم الغربي، وبروز العولمة بأفكارها التوسعية الرأس مالية العابرة للحدود والقارات ولا شك أن التربية على حقوق الإنسان هي إحدى أدوات الإنسان الحديث للعقلانية واحترام الذات.
كاتب المقال : نزار حربي
3/18/2011
McNamara Ground Ops Coffee Maching, Detroit on events in Damascus tuday
Demonstrations in Damascus, Homs, Qamishli, Aleppo, and Homs Friday prayers.
3/06/2011
from my appartment
Nawal Sa'dawi on CNN...amazing that "ms"| Amanpour let her get a few words in edgewise.
And the protesters in Wisconsin raise banner saying "Fight like an Egyptian!" these days
Attached are protesters in Lansing, Michigan, in solidarity with the protesters in Wisconsin. Nothing about that in the BBC and CNN--only Lybia.
2/25/2011
McNamara Ground Ops Coffee Machine: Friday demos in Benghazi, Mosul and Cairo
Since the last post, February 15, the battles in the east of Libya began. We learn today that over 2,000 people died fighting Qaddafy's army in Benghazi(بنغازي). This afternoon, there were shootings in Tripoli against the people as the Qaddafy clique attempts to stay in power in a tiny area of Libya, in its capital, Tripoli. Popular committees in Benghazi meet and send arms to defend the people of Tripoli and bring down Qaddafi so as to establish a free Lybia. Today, there were huge prayer meetings thanking God that the people of Benghazi had liberated itself. Huge crowds celebrating.
...also demonstrations for better standard of living in Yemen, and Iraq today. As we wake up in the US, and as they go to sleep in the Mediterranean, the revolutionaries have taken over a small part of Tripoli from the Qaddafy army.
It is quite surprising that it took a whole week for the western powers to send in ships to evacuate their workers there. Only today did a Canadian plane arrive in Tripoli airport, only to turn around and go back empty because there were no Canadians waiting to get on.
Libya was a prison house of different minorities. In Libya state TV showing Qaddafi addressing Green square today, I see a banner of The Tuareg Youth, a desert tribe who speak Tamaziqa, and who were not allowed to speak it. I didn't even know the Tuareg were in Lybia. In an interview yesterday on Al-Arabiyya with a Tamazikht organizer in exile in London ...he said 50 Tamazikht officers had defected right from Qaddafy's army...or perhaps were killed It wasn't clear to me.
The Lybian ambassador in the UN, Abdurrahman Shalgham denounced Qaddafi's talk about "glory" right in the UN...he had heard the stupid rabble-rousing speech Qaddafy gave to his supporters today from a wall in Tripoli. Previously this rep had stalled, while his assistant rep denounced the regime. But today, he did, too. Curiously, even though China had to evacuate over 5,000 workers from Lybia today, in the Security Council, China is not supporting France's suggestion that the bank accounts of 25 Lybians(Qaddafi-ites) be frozen.
I wish I had recorded the Lybian ambassador's (Abdurrahman Shalgham) emotional rejection of Qaddafi's killing of the Lybian people.
1:19am Feb. 26, 2011..still the 25th at the UN in New York
...also demonstrations for better standard of living in Yemen, and Iraq today. As we wake up in the US, and as they go to sleep in the Mediterranean, the revolutionaries have taken over a small part of Tripoli from the Qaddafy army.
It is quite surprising that it took a whole week for the western powers to send in ships to evacuate their workers there. Only today did a Canadian plane arrive in Tripoli airport, only to turn around and go back empty because there were no Canadians waiting to get on.
Libya was a prison house of different minorities. In Libya state TV showing Qaddafi addressing Green square today, I see a banner of The Tuareg Youth, a desert tribe who speak Tamaziqa, and who were not allowed to speak it. I didn't even know the Tuareg were in Lybia. In an interview yesterday on Al-Arabiyya with a Tamazikht organizer in exile in London ...he said 50 Tamazikht officers had defected right from Qaddafy's army...or perhaps were killed It wasn't clear to me.
The Lybian ambassador in the UN, Abdurrahman Shalgham denounced Qaddafi's talk about "glory" right in the UN...he had heard the stupid rabble-rousing speech Qaddafy gave to his supporters today from a wall in Tripoli. Previously this rep had stalled, while his assistant rep denounced the regime. But today, he did, too. Curiously, even though China had to evacuate over 5,000 workers from Lybia today, in the Security Council, China is not supporting France's suggestion that the bank accounts of 25 Lybians(Qaddafi-ites) be frozen.
I wish I had recorded the Lybian ambassador's (Abdurrahman Shalgham) emotional rejection of Qaddafi's killing of the Lybian people.
1:19am Feb. 26, 2011..still the 25th at the UN in New York
2/15/2011
Café de Flore, Paris
Je suppose que c'est de la galanterie de parler enthousiaste des femmes du mouvement 25 janvier qui ont parle courageusement a la télévision égyptienne ce soir. Pendant que le New York Times parlent de la haute bourgeoisie--Baradei et autres--qui veulent que le transition vers un gouvernement parlementaire aille lentement, ces jeunes la disaient "non..maintenant...vite, dissoudre les appareils, la police, etc., et laisser le peuple faire ce qu'il doit faire! Vraiment quel courage de dire ça au télévision. Elles sentaient intuitivement la puissance des grèves qui continue et que le général Tantawi continue a dire quand il est au télévision que tout le monde doit retourner a la production. C'est vraiment de beaux temps pour l'Egypte ces jours ci.
Une autre dame, un peu plus vieille, mais non moins forte a parler, disaient que l'argent des corrompus es en train de s'en aller ailleurs. Nous sommes témoins donc a un situation révolutionnaire ou la bourgeoisie n'a plus confiance et commence a s'enfuir avec tous ce qu'ils ont. Est-ce qu'il y a, ou est-ce qu'il va émerger, un Fidel Castro ou un parti bolchevique pour saisir les banques et commencer une distribution des plantation aux agriculteurs? Avec l'armée en charge, c'est presque comme le "bon vieux temps" du roi Farouk et les Anglais dirigeant le pays avec leur troupes.
Si je n'étais pas si vieux, je serai la en vendant le manifeste communiste en Arabe et en parlant de Malcolm X et Fidèle.
Dommage que je n'ai pas enregistre ces femmes du mouvement 25 janvier.
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of
Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from
McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.
Une autre dame, un peu plus vieille, mais non moins forte a parler, disaient que l'argent des corrompus es en train de s'en aller ailleurs. Nous sommes témoins donc a un situation révolutionnaire ou la bourgeoisie n'a plus confiance et commence a s'enfuir avec tous ce qu'ils ont. Est-ce qu'il y a, ou est-ce qu'il va émerger, un Fidel Castro ou un parti bolchevique pour saisir les banques et commencer une distribution des plantation aux agriculteurs? Avec l'armée en charge, c'est presque comme le "bon vieux temps" du roi Farouk et les Anglais dirigeant le pays avec leur troupes.
Si je n'étais pas si vieux, je serai la en vendant le manifeste communiste en Arabe et en parlant de Malcolm X et Fidèle.
Dommage que je n'ai pas enregistre ces femmes du mouvement 25 janvier.
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of
Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from
McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.
2/14/2011
Egypt News: McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit
After the occupation of Maidan Tahrir on January 25th and the resigning of Mubarak on February 11th in the face of mounting protests, including strikes in Textile and Steel, and the formation of neighborhood committees, Egypt is open to a wide debate on the future goverment for the first time. As apparently directed by the Pentagon, the Egyptian Armed Forces are letting people vent their steam, hoping to keep a bourgeois government and the private sector strong, corrupt, and wealthy, while the country suffers from poverty and impossibility to export and produce because of the Israeli blocade--the Israeli Navy, and the very existence of the state blocking normal land travel between Egypt and the rest of the Arab World and Europe.
Although the Army and Police, by saying they are now "with the people" have got cars moving through Tahrir, women in large numbers are protesting in front of various ministries and the Egyptian TV does phone interviews with what seem to be commettees of self defense in Arish, with arms, which have not yet submitted to the be coordinated by the Army "calming" forces.
General Tantawi, the Army head of Command, on Egyptian TV,calls for all strikes to cease and production to return to normal so that the country can eventually hold democratic elections. It is strange to see the Army so overtly in control. The TV is quite sophisticated in showing outspoken demonstrations and demonstrators, and at the same time, giving the biographies of the Generals and broadcasting the commanding voice of Tantawi. Doubtless the Pentagon and Obama are watching how they do this, taking notes from the Egyptians on how to do it when Americans start resisting the cut-backs, unemployment, high cost of food and poverty here. There is no mention of the outside world, just Egypt and the "wonderful" Army. That is how the US ruling class will do it too. "We're all Americans, rebuilding real democracy" under an Army Command--the command and the Army and Police that saved us from the makers of Baluch rugs in Afghanistan, who were going to "get us" with their flying carpets, I suppose--?
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of
Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from
McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.
1/26/2011
Fishawi tea shop, Khan al-Khalili, Cairo
Il n'y avait que les vieux et les touristes hier dans les allées du Café Fishawi. Tout le monde étaient dans Maidan Tahrir pour manifester contre le gouvernement. Peut-etre ces assemblées étaient les plus grandes depuis les funérailles pour la mort de Gamal Abd An-Naser en 1970. Une trentaine de morts (ou blessés) par la police, mais il n'y avait pas beaucoup que la police a pu faire. L'Egypte, quand ca bouge, c'est comme aux Etats Unis: ca bouge vite.
Les Etats Unis etait vite à annoncer qu'ils pensait que le gouvernement etait "stable."
Les Etats Unis etait vite à annoncer qu'ils pensait que le gouvernement etait "stable."
1/25/2011
Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza...listening to Tunisia from the coast
Far away to the west of us, on the north african coast of the Mediterranean, people have risen up from their seats in the cafes and demonstrated for food and against unemployment in Tunisia. There are new voices in the debate over the crisis of the banks, a crisis which is being put on the backs of working people. This morning Al-Arabiyya tv interviewed the workers outside the headquarters of the Merchant Marine in Tunis. Last night an Egyptian Al-Arabiyya tv interviewer was in Sidi BouZid interviewing a man, who seemed to be FOR the old government staying a while, and a woman, Omaiz, who said the important thing was democracy and tackling the unemployment problem.
Below is the end of the interview, so that these Tunisian accents in good, clear--but slightly different from Palestinian--can be heard on this blog. Mr. Hussein, Mrs. Omaiyaz, and the moderator.
pro-and-conSidiBuZeed-Tunisia.mp3
Below is the end of the interview, so that these Tunisian accents in good, clear--but slightly different from Palestinian--can be heard on this blog. Mr. Hussein, Mrs. Omaiyaz, and the moderator.
pro-and-conSidiBuZeed-Tunisia.mp3
1/21/2011
Saint James Restaurant, London...Dunkin' Donuts, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
There was an interesting passage in the New Headway Academic Skills Reading Final yesterday that stated that most British students went to study at the University of Paris between the early days of Oxford in the 1000's up to 1169, when Henry the Second forbade students to study in Paris.
Here I am at Dunkin Donuts where the only reference to those wonderful London kindney pies at St James Restaurant (or coffee shop, with white linens) is the fact that I have to get back to my room to relieve myself...must go now because there is a man smoking a cigarette. Ugh
Je suis venu pour essayer le WiFi à Dunkin donuts, qui est juste devant Jarir Plaza à Dhahran, près de l'université.
Pas aussi "athletique" que d'aller à Starbucks à Doha, mais j'étais au Starbucks hier et il n'y avait pas de réseau. Ici il y un réseau Wifi avec Quiznos Subs à coté. Il faut que je mets mon clavier français sur ce netbook.
Je l'ai fait. Maintenant
A bientot des salonsde cafe au moyen orient.
Here I am at Dunkin Donuts where the only reference to those wonderful London kindney pies at St James Restaurant (or coffee shop, with white linens) is the fact that I have to get back to my room to relieve myself...must go now because there is a man smoking a cigarette. Ugh
Je suis venu pour essayer le WiFi à Dunkin donuts, qui est juste devant Jarir Plaza à Dhahran, près de l'université.
Pas aussi "athletique" que d'aller à Starbucks à Doha, mais j'étais au Starbucks hier et il n'y avait pas de réseau. Ici il y un réseau Wifi avec Quiznos Subs à coté. Il faut que je mets mon clavier français sur ce netbook.
Je l'ai fait. Maintenant
A bientot des salonsde cafe au moyen orient.
1/20/2011
Café de Flore, Paris
Continuing our coffee qnd dqte tasting series, here in Saint Germain des Pres, with the finest of service, well dressed waiters in their long white aprons and black vest coats, with the perfectly white napkins replaced by the yellow paper napkins now at Les Deux Magots, ... we continue.
Rashudiyya. these long, brown dates have a bamboo-like, cane suger-like taste. The smells are like the dry surface plants of the desert, and the surface of the date is a bit flakey. Inside, the date is soft and has a little hint of bitterness in its taste. It is sweet, yet bitter at the same time. It is like eating dark chocolate with minimal suger, although one is sure there is plenty of natural sugar in Rashudiyya dates. Interestingly, the root verb ra-sha-da, in Arabic is the word for guide, and gives us the name for the first four "good" or "righteous" caliphs, khulafa' al-Rashidiin, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali-. The plural of rashiid (رشيد), which means "rightly guided," "having the true faith," reasonable, intelligent, discriminating, mature (in Hans Wehr); ---the plural of rashiid is rushada' (رشداء), meaning "full legal age," mature (in Hans Wehr), is also the name of the famous North Egyptian town in the Delta, Rosetta, where the "Rosetta stone" was found. The Rosette Stone gave the key to Champollion to decipher Pharaonic Hieroglyphs.
Café de Flore, Paris
Coffee and date tasting at Café de Flore, continued tonight past midnight on my birthday.
Khudrii, which means "greengrocer" in Hans Wehr, but comes from the root verb "green"--خضري-- in Arabic. These dates are somewhat dry and hard, once they are demi-sec, one might say, like a fine red wine. Fine Khadri --خضري فاخر--are less expensive than fine 'ajwa or Rashudiya, and they are perhaps more of the common man's date. But, being somewhat more dry than the sticky dates, the pit comes out easily from your mouth and your fingers don't get sticky
The taste is less sweet, and more like a fiber cereal than other, more expensive dates. Khadri have a slightly muddy, kind of starchy, dry, earthy taste. This is really a fine woody taste (like the fine woods for making perfume in Arabia, i.e. 'oud--عود) with a hint of far-away Michigan oak-tree and acorn nut tannins and an easily identifiable fresh ginger taste.
Café de Flore, Paris
All accounts of gallantry shall be from Café de Flore, or Les deux Magots--better--in St. Germain des Pres.
Prime "ajwa"--soft "paste-like" black dates from Medina. These dates have a very rich, chocolaty texture with a hint of desert sage and woody tannins.
Best tasted with good Ethiopian or Yemen roasted-"torrified" to a very light brown, or with the southern Arabian preference of nearly unroasted, "green" coffee with cardamon.
Re-cap of the different coffee shops--Addison and Steele's, The Tatler
Flore, Fishawi, Shati, McNamara
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of
Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from
McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.
I once more desire my readers to consider that as I cannot keep an ingenious man to go daily to Flore’s under two euros each day merely for his charges, to Fishawi’s under six rials, nor to the Shati without allowing him some plain American, to be as able as others at the learned table; and that a good observer cannot speak with even Tuna (sandwich from the vending machine) at McNamara’s without clean paper napkins; I say, these considerations will, I hope, make all persons willing to comply with my humble request (when my gratis stock is exhausted) of a “visit-with-advertisement” a piece; especially since they are sure of some proper amusement, and that it is impossible for me to want means to entertain them, having, besides the helps of my own parts, the power of divination, and that I can, by casting a figure, tell you all that will happen before it comes to pass.
“All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under
the article of White's Chocolate-house;[57] poetry, under that of Will's
Coffee-house;[58] learning, under the title of Grecian;[59] foreign and
domestic news, you will have from St. James's Coffee-house;[60] and what
else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own
apartment.
I once more desire my readers to consider that as I cannot keep an
ingenious man to go daily to Will's under twopence each day merely
for his charges,[61] to White's under sixpence, nor to the Grecian
without allowing him some plain Spanish,[62] to be as able as others at
the learned table; and that a good observer cannot speak with even
Kidney[63] at St. James's without clean linen; I say, these
considerations will, I hope, make all persons willing to comply with my
humble request (when my gratis stock is exhausted) of a penny a piece;
especially since they are sure of some proper amusement, and that it is
impossible for me to want means to entertain them, having, besides the
helps of my own parts, the power of divination, and that I can, by
casting a figure, tell you all that will happen before it comes to pass.”
Tatler, Steele Tuesday, April 12, 1709
Even though I have removed all references to Project Gutenberg, this was nicely pasted in from the Project Gutenberg Tatler, which says, "This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net".
posted by 3011 @ 12/01/2005
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of
Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from
McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.
I once more desire my readers to consider that as I cannot keep an ingenious man to go daily to Flore’s under two euros each day merely for his charges, to Fishawi’s under six rials, nor to the Shati without allowing him some plain American, to be as able as others at the learned table; and that a good observer cannot speak with even Tuna (sandwich from the vending machine) at McNamara’s without clean paper napkins; I say, these considerations will, I hope, make all persons willing to comply with my humble request (when my gratis stock is exhausted) of a “visit-with-advertisement” a piece; especially since they are sure of some proper amusement, and that it is impossible for me to want means to entertain them, having, besides the helps of my own parts, the power of divination, and that I can, by casting a figure, tell you all that will happen before it comes to pass.
“All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under
the article of White's Chocolate-house;[57] poetry, under that of Will's
Coffee-house;[58] learning, under the title of Grecian;[59] foreign and
domestic news, you will have from St. James's Coffee-house;[60] and what
else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own
apartment.
I once more desire my readers to consider that as I cannot keep an
ingenious man to go daily to Will's under twopence each day merely
for his charges,[61] to White's under sixpence, nor to the Grecian
without allowing him some plain Spanish,[62] to be as able as others at
the learned table; and that a good observer cannot speak with even
Kidney[63] at St. James's without clean linen; I say, these
considerations will, I hope, make all persons willing to comply with my
humble request (when my gratis stock is exhausted) of a penny a piece;
especially since they are sure of some proper amusement, and that it is
impossible for me to want means to entertain them, having, besides the
helps of my own parts, the power of divination, and that I can, by
casting a figure, tell you all that will happen before it comes to pass.”
Tatler, Steele Tuesday, April 12, 1709
Even though I have removed all references to Project Gutenberg, this was nicely pasted in from the Project Gutenberg Tatler, which says, "This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net".
posted by 3011 @ 12/01/2005
MacNamara Ground Ops Coffee Machine snackroom honors Mohamed Bouazizi
Rising food prices and unemployment sparked protests in Tunisia last December, which grew larger after the death of Mohammad Bouazizi, who burned himself to death in protest when police arrested him for selling food without a permit. His death was the tinder box for the beginning of protests, forced the President, Zein ed-Din bin Ali, to leave the country. Protests continue to this day calling for a new republic without traces of the old regime.
1/14/2011
from my appartment
Al-Arabiyya montre le vieux Jimmy Carter au Sudan, mais les grandes Chaines imperialistes, CNN et BBC ne le montre pas. Ah, Jimmy, c'est toi, avec ton evangelisme chretien qui a eu l'idee de virer de l'aide militaire pour le sud du Sudan pour bientot mettre Darfour au pieges de tes amis dans les grands societes de Petrol. Maintenant les imperialists mangent les fruits de leurs efforts a diviser le Sudan pour bien avoir un petit protectorat pour "leur" petrol, et, en plus, un autre base militaire americain pres du base de Djibouti.
Pensee du 13 janvier 2011
...bien que il y a de l'avncement politique dans les droits des opprimees ethniques du sud Sudan, en meme temps et ca n'est pas tout a fait bon pour les imperialists, non, plus. C'est pour cela que maintenant Jimmy est avec Bashir, au nord pour verifier qu'il y aura toujours du conflit dans la region. Que les imperialsists sont complexe dans l'epoque de leur declin!
Pensee du 13 janvier 2011
...bien que il y a de l'avncement politique dans les droits des opprimees ethniques du sud Sudan, en meme temps et ca n'est pas tout a fait bon pour les imperialists, non, plus. C'est pour cela que maintenant Jimmy est avec Bashir, au nord pour verifier qu'il y aura toujours du conflit dans la region. Que les imperialsists sont complexe dans l'epoque de leur declin!
Inscription à :
Articles (Atom)